An American tourist in Russia
From The Saker: The Biden Administration has gone out of its way to show itself as absolutely “woke-compatible” and even as a champion of “wokeness” (Foggy Bottom has just allowed US embassies and consulates to fly the “gay pride” flag next to the Stars and Stripes. I bet you they won’t do that in Riyadh!).
Ukraine seems to have lost confidence in NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks in Donbass. In exchange, Putin agreed to meet… in Moscow. Then he declared his “training exercise” over and ordered the Russian units massed at the border to withdraw. This is a huge embarrassment for both the Biden administration and NATO. Here’s my explanation for what happened.
Woke cancel culture has claimed more victims; this time, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Yes, you read that correctly. Celebrating WWII woman veterans is racist. Last week a proposed WNBA shirt celebrating the WASP legacy hit the airwaves, and the news eventually dripped into the victimhood echo chamber known as Twitter.
The standoff in Eastern Ukraine continues. Here’s a rundown of events so far and what may come next. I’ll continue adding live updates to this post as the situation develops.
The Kremlin doubles down on their troop and ship movements, the White House is ineffectual as always, and Ankara gets bolder with their support of Ukraine. That last development (which includes new Turkish drones and Syrian mercenaries) is particularly good for Kiev, but probably gives them little comfort since just about every player at the table has made it clear they won’t face open warfare with Russia.
Ukrainian Special Forces are recruiting Syrian mercenaries to fight in the disputed Donbass region. The American media has mostly declined to report on this event, for reasons that I’ll leave up to readers to infer. However, The Syrian Observer reported last month that Turkish special forces asked Syrian militants to prepare for deployment to Ukraine.